2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker - Part II

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ArchSas said:
If you want to make the claim that gerrymandering, voter suppression, fake news, and the EC have made the American election process messy and somewhat undemocratic, I'm not going to disagree with that. The GOP does all they can to rig the system in their favor, and a lot of the time, it works (sometimes with outside help).

But that's not what you originally asked. You asked if "far-left" views were more popular than moderate ones, and that's what I was replying to. Evidence shows they actually are. Whether or not that's reflected in elections is a different matter, sadly.
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You're right. I'll rephrase then: do you think that far-left candidates are more electable than moderates?
 
Well, we just lost our climate change president; Jay Inslee has dropped out, without (for now) endorsing one of his opponents.

Here's an article on the Andrew Yang boomlet. Apparently Yang drew 3% in a recent Fox News poll, and while that's not much, it put him in fifth position, as the only people ahead of him were Biden, Warren, Sanders and Harris. The article contains an absolutely hilarious (and actually endearing) bit:

Now, here in the Suburban, as we crossed the Broad River, I brought up “Rex and Lex.” That’s what Yang named his pecs, “Rex” for the right, “Lex” for the left, when he was lifting all those weights. I knew about this because he wrote about in his other, earlier book, Smart People Should Build Things. He “could jostle them on command,” he had written, “to make them ‘talk.’” Obviously, I wanted to hear more.

Yang obliged. Having shed his blue sport coat, he looked down at his chest, and he … channeled “Rex.”

“He’s, like, almost mute,” he said, “but he’s still like”—and here the candidate for president made his dad-bod-dormant pectoralis undulate under his checked, collared shirt and assumed a diminutive, sing-song cadence—“‘Andrew, I still have a little bit of voice left. You haven’t fed me in a long time. You used to looooove meeeeeee.’”
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Bernie Sanders has released his own Green New Deal:

Dubbing the plan as his version of the Green New Deal, Sanders wants America’s electrical and transportation systems to be powered exclusively by renewable energy by 2030, and for America to be totally decarbonized by 2050. The plan calls for a $16.3 trillion public investment to make this happen, which Sanders says will pay for itself in only 15 years, partially through tax revenue generated from the 20 million new jobs the plan would create. To help kick the plan into gear, Sanders would take executive action to declare the climate crisis a national emergency.
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But, no surprise, no nukes:

The thing is, Sanders won’t make this easy. The plan explicitly says it will not rely on nuclear power, a move that will resonate with activists but could also wreak havoc on the electrical grid. Nuclear provides a baseline type of energy because it can, if needed, always be on.

“Does that mean that all existing nuclear plants that are still running in 2030 would be shut down?” Costa Samaras, the director of Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Engineering and Resilience for Climate Adaptation, told Earther. “That seems like an unnecessary fight and expense at a time where every bit of carbon reduction counts.”
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Belz... said:
You're right. I'll rephrase then: do you think that far-left candidates are more electable than moderates?
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Considering the kind of support Sanders has been building up, yes. I'm of the opinion that a candidate people are excited about and will be motivated to vote for (because most people support their policies) is a better choice strategy-wise than appealing to some "common sense" notion of the center. Trump was able to build up that excitement when the Democrats couldn't, and it's part of what got him elected, even despite losing the popular vote and with low turnout overall. It's strange to me (although understandable, considering the influence of big money) that in mainstream politics supporting policies most people actually want is seen as bad strategy.

But hey, again, that's just my opinion. I just have a hard time seeing how a old conservative that no one is excited about (not even his own wife), and with a lot of baggage, is a good idea to run for president. Especially considering that a lot of criticism I saw among people I knew of Hillary last time was contempt at the idea that people should vote for her because it was "her turn." I think good ideas are far more attractive to most people than playing it safe.

ETA: Thanks for the link, kellyb.
 
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Belz... said:
You're right. I'll rephrase then: do you think that far-left candidates are more electable than moderates?
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Seems like they're about even overall, when you look at the polling.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/

Sanders and Warren are "more electable" than any of the moderates besides Biden, and it would stand to reason that whichever democrat wins the nomination will become "more electable" than they are right now.
 
Bernie told MSNBC that to combat "climate change" it would be necessary to nationalize all energy production. So, only socialism or communism can save us from the climate change hoax.
 
BrooklynBaby said:
Bernie told MSNBC that to combat "climate change" it would be necessary to nationalize all energy production. So, only socialism or communism can save us from the climate change hoax.
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Sounds like BS.
Got a link?
 
BrooklynBaby said:
Bernie told MSNBC that to combat "climate change" it would be necessary to nationalize all energy production. So, only socialism or communism can save us from the climate change hoax.
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"Climate change" is for "sheeple". Or something like that.
 
BrooklynBaby said:
BS? You could see this coming from Bernie and AOC all along. This is what "climate change" has always been about.


https://www.breitbart.com/clips/201...ergy-production-cant-nibble-around-the-edges/
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Can you quote the part where he says "nationalize all energy production"?

The closest I'm seeing is:
Look, the TVA has done a lot of good work. It produces electricity from hydropower and other sources.
What we need to do is have an aggressive federal government saying that we are going to produce a massive amount of electricity from solar and from wind and from other sustainable energies and we will sell it out. And by the way, we’re going to make money doing that.

But you can’t nibble around the edges anymore. We need to transform our energy system. That means a massive increase in sustainable energy.
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Do you think the Hoover Dam is communism?
 
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kellyb said:
Can you quote the part where he says "nationalize all energy production"?

The closest I'm seeing is:


Do you think the Hoover Dam is communism?
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I found an article on CNN talking about how he called for the complete nationalization of energy production, banks, and most industry ... nearly 50 years ago. People never change, after all.
 
Brainster said:
Well, we just lost our climate change president; Jay Inslee has dropped out, without (for now) endorsing one of his opponents.
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Just as well, going nowhere. And the last time he got a yen for higher office he quite Congress (as my rep) to run for gov, forcing the state to hold a special election for his unexpired term. At least I got a trivia quiz question out of it.
 
Armitage72 said:
I found an article on CNN talking about how he called for the complete nationalization of energy production, banks, and most industry ... nearly 50 years ago. People never change, after all.
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:rolleyes:

By that measure Trump is a pro-choice Democrat.
 
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BrooklynBaby said:
Bernie told MSNBC that to combat "climate change" it would be necessary to nationalize all energy production. So, only socialism or communism can save us from the climate change hoax.
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If climate change were a hoax, you might have a point. Since it is not, Bernie may be on to something.
 
Jungle Jim said:
If climate change were a hoax, you might have a point. Since it is not, Bernie may be on to something.
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That's if Bernie actually said that. Right Wing media is notoriously inaccurate when it comes to claims like that, though. Right Wing "news" consumers also have a much, much stronger issue with confirmation bias and blindly accepting fake news than centrist and left-wing media consumers. It's also worth noting that there's very little in the way of actual left-wing media, though, compared to right wing and centrist.
 
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kellyb said:
Can you quote the part where he says "nationalize all energy production"?

The closest I'm seeing is:


Do you think the Hoover Dam is communism?
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I've read a few articles on this nationalize thing, and it's somewhat tendentious, but it does seem to be a logical endpoint, if you buy Bernie's fantasy of 100% renewable by 2030.

What we need to do is have an aggressive federal government saying that we are going to produce a massive amount of energy from solar and from wind and from other sustainable energies," Sanders said.

In his climate plan, Sanders praised the TVA but indicated that it and other federal, administrative bodies didn't cover enough of the United States.

"Currently, four federal Power Marketing Administrations [PMAs] and the Tennessee Valley Authority generate and transmit power to distribution utilities in 33 states," the plan read. "We will create one more PMA to cover the remaining states and territories and expand the existing PMAs to build more than enough wind, solar, energy storage and geothermal power plants."
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The concept seems pretty obvious. Build more than enough power to replace all the old plants and the utility companies will be left in the position of selling the power to end users but not in generating their own (unless, one presumes, they have a lot of renewable energy of their own). Ergo the government takes a monopoly position on energy generation, effectively nationalizing that part of the industry.
 
Brainster said:
I've read a few articles on this nationalize thing, and it's somewhat tendentious, but it does seem to be a logical endpoint, if you buy Bernie's fantasy of 100% renewable by 2030.



The concept seems pretty obvious. Build more than enough power to replace all the old plants and the utility companies will be left in the position of selling the power to end users but not in generating their own (unless, one presumes, they have a lot of renewable energy of their own). Ergo the government takes a monopoly position on energy generation, effectively nationalizing that part of the industry.
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Regarding the highlighted, there's nothing keeping them from doing that.

I'm pretty sure Germany's Energiewende, for example, has lots and lots of private sector ownership and involvement.
 
kellyb said:
Regarding the highlighted, there's nothing keeping them from doing that.

I'm pretty sure Germany's Energiewende, for example, has lots and lots of private sector ownership and involvement.
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It's also worth noting that there are a bunch of sustainable energy focused private power production companies, already, anyways. It's literally the fastest growing sector in power production, very much including in red states, despite the Trump Administration's hostility. Altering the subsidy balance alone would be enough to help speed the ongoing transition even more, before getting to the prospect of more active investment in sustainable energy.
 
kellyb said:
Regarding the highlighted, there's nothing keeping them from doing that.
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Which is part of the reason I conceded that the point is tendentious. Another is that Bernie proposes selling off the local power units created to "co-ops."

I was hoping that he would endorse selling them to the ratepayers; then he could enter the rooms that he packs to the music of "Power to the People!"
 
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